Jewish Catacombs Remain Secret : Archeology: Efforts are being made to make the tombs in Rome as popular as the Christian ones. The burial spaces are a unique documentation of life during the first centuries after Jesus.

When the Roman Catholic Church turned over the Jewish catacombs to Italy, leaders of the West’s oldest Jewish community thought they would be as popular with tourists as the Christian catacombs on the Appian Way.

More than five years later, most tourists still do not know that the Jewish catacombs exist. Those who do have to brave Rome’s bureaucracy for permission to visit them.

Plans to make the Jewish catacombs safe and easy to visit fell victim to a government budget that is chronically short of money even to care for archeological sites already open to the public.

“All the plans are ready,” said Nicoletta Pagliardi of Rome’s superintendency of archeology. “We could do it tomorrow, but the funds are used up. We have to wait for next year’s budget.”

Disappointed but determined, Italian Jews have turned to private groups. Last spring, the World Monuments Fund began raising money for a scientific survey of what must be done to make the catacombs suitable for visitors.

The catacombs, used in the first three or four centuries after Jesus, are a “unique documentation of Jewish life, of a religious minority which lived in imperial Rome,” said Tullia Zevi, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.

Burial spaces, like narrow berths in a railroad sleeper car, were carved in soft tufa stone, one atop the other. Inscriptions on marble slabs that covered the niches are the main source of information about the ancient Jews, Zevi said.

Inscriptions indicate that the Jews prayed mainly in Greek and spoke in Latin. Many apparently were ordinary people, artisans or merchants, but there also were bankers, magistrates, actors and other professionals.

On the walls of the catacombs are stunning images of menorahs, peacocks and pomegranates symbolizing fertility.

Nearly all the inscriptions now reside in the Vatican’s museums and storerooms. The Vatican took charge of the Jewish catacombs after their discovery more than 100 years ago, before the modern Italian state was created, because it was the only organization with the means to excavate them.

An estimated 40,000 to 60,000 Jews lived in ancient Italy, compared to today’s total of 35,000 to 40,000. A synagogue at Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port, may be the oldest monotheistic temple in Europe.

Of Rome’s six known Jewish catacombs, four collapsed or were built upon in the last centuries.

The fifth is on property of a private villa near the Appia Antica and the sixth on the grounds of Villa Torlonia, now a city park, where dictator Benito Mussolini lived for 20 years. Mussolini signed the 1929 Lateran Pacts that gave the Vatican control of all catacombs.

To see the Jewish catacombs, a visitor must apply in person for a permit at the superintendency of archeology.

“If a person comes to Rome for a weekend, they’ll be gone by the time they get a permit,” Zevi said.

Nearly all requests are from scholars or Jewish groups, Pagliardi said, and “it’s rare when an ordinary tourist hears about” the catacombs.

Zevi said she realizes it will not be possible to match the hours of the Christian catacombs, which are open morning and afternoon six days a week and have thousands of visitors. Villa Torlonia, for example, can accommodate only about 10 people at a time.

Jewish groups would be content to see the catacombs open to the public at least one day a week, Zevi said.

The World Monuments Fund favors making the Jewish catacombs more accessible, but it worries that tourists might damage them--by brushing against a frescoed wall, innocently introducing bacteria, even just by breathing, said Samuel Gruber, director of the fund’s Jewish Heritage Council.

Pagliardi said Christian catacombs have been damaged by excessive numbers of visitors and the state wants to save the Jewish catacombs from a similar fate.

Electrical wiring has been installed in the first 100 yards of the half-mile-long passageway at Villa Torlonia, but much remains to be done. When it rains, archeologists place blocks of wood near the entrance to serve as stepping stones through ankle-deep water.

The reward for going in is a chance to stand for a few minutes in a room that testifies to the Jews’ strong feelings for their faith. A menorah fresco decorates the vaulted ceiling and a rolled scroll, representing the Torah, is painted near the entryway.

Other frescoes include dolphins, palm leaves and the Ark of the Covenant.